Why are people afraid of the truth? Is it because it stings like being shot in the spine with Double-O buckshot? Every time I read the papers, it seems that someone has made a factually true statement that ends up “offending” one or more groups of people in America. And these days, everyone belongs to a group. You’ve got your “Minorities”, “Homosexuals,” “Women,” “Physically Challenged,” “One-Legged Left-Handed Bursitis Sufferers,” and the list goes on and on.
For some reason, the media likes to refer to any group larger than two people as a “Community," as in “Homosexual community leaders staged a protest today….” In order to make a cogent argument, definitions must first be agreed upon by all parties involved. A community is, as far as I can tell, a group of people living in the same locality and under the same government. Levittown, New York, therefore is a community. People who are attracted to members of the same sex, however, do not share a zip code, only a hobby, and can’t logically be called a community. The media likes to use words like "community" to emphasize the togetherness and camaraderie that these people share, and, by extension, the recognition they deserve from society as a whole.
But sharing a common physical or psychological trait is not enough of an entrance fee to command the general populace’s unwavering respect. Just because someone is gay, or black or possesses some other irrelevant characteristic, doesn’t mean that they are exempt from society’s microscope and subsequent critique.
Let’s take a moment to look at a statement made by William J. Bennett, a conservative radio talk-show host and former Secretary of Education. On the air yesterday, Bennett responded to a caller who had suggested that Social Security would be better funded if abortion had not been legalized in 1973 because the nation would have more workers paying into the system. A specious argument at best, and it was in Bennett’s best interest to rebut it. He did so by offering the following analogy:
“But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."
Intelligent listeners of Bennett’s show, I assume, merely nodded their head in agreement, as the example he had offered was just as hollow as the caller’s. However, those remarks ignited a firestorm under the rear-ends of every self-righteous, Politically Correct individual from Congressional Representatives to Wade Henderson, the executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. They demanded an apology. They want his show to be suspended or cancelled. They denounced him as a racist and a bigot all because he attempted to refute a poorly thought out argument with a similar tautology.
Strangely enough, even though such a comment incited hundreds of talking-heads into full-blown defensive mode, not one person has bothered to point out that logically, William Bennett is 100% correct. Offensive? Insensitive? Who cares? Statistically, he makes sense.
While it would be an enormous undertaking to examine every crime perpetrated in America, let’s look at perhaps the most violent of violent crimes: Murder. According to the Department of Justice, between the years 1976 and 2002, Blacks were 7 times more likely to commit homicide than whites. That is a statistical fact based on conviction rates. According to the statistics for 2002, for every 100,000 people in America, 3.6 of them are whites who have been found guilty of homicide. Conversely, 24.9 people (out of that same 100,000) convicted of homicide are black. There are 290 million people in America, and approximately 13% of them are black. Mathematically, that means that .02% of all black Americans are murderers, compared to .0036% of all whites.
Or if you want to look at it another way, in 2002, 8,490 white people were convicted of murder, while in that same year, 9,297 blacks were convicted of murder.
That’s a total of 17,787 murders in America in 2002, and 52.2% of them were committed by 13% of the population.
Using nothing but pure mathematics and logic, one can see that if you were to eliminate a percentage of either one of these groups, the murder rate would decrease proportionately. Are there other variables that would contribute to the crime rate? Of course. And that’s precisely the argument that Bennett was attempting to make. If there were no blacks in America, there would still be crime, as another group would fill the criminal void. But an examination of the numbers vindicates Bennett’s position, and makes the ensuing controversy superfluous.
Logic has redeemed Mr. William Bennett and will continue to kick sand in the face of those who vehemently deny the truth. Want some more eye-popping truth? Visit this site for some brightly colored maps that further support Bennett’s assertion.
Color-Blind Mortals.
For some reason, the media likes to refer to any group larger than two people as a “Community," as in “Homosexual community leaders staged a protest today….” In order to make a cogent argument, definitions must first be agreed upon by all parties involved. A community is, as far as I can tell, a group of people living in the same locality and under the same government. Levittown, New York, therefore is a community. People who are attracted to members of the same sex, however, do not share a zip code, only a hobby, and can’t logically be called a community. The media likes to use words like "community" to emphasize the togetherness and camaraderie that these people share, and, by extension, the recognition they deserve from society as a whole.
But sharing a common physical or psychological trait is not enough of an entrance fee to command the general populace’s unwavering respect. Just because someone is gay, or black or possesses some other irrelevant characteristic, doesn’t mean that they are exempt from society’s microscope and subsequent critique.
Let’s take a moment to look at a statement made by William J. Bennett, a conservative radio talk-show host and former Secretary of Education. On the air yesterday, Bennett responded to a caller who had suggested that Social Security would be better funded if abortion had not been legalized in 1973 because the nation would have more workers paying into the system. A specious argument at best, and it was in Bennett’s best interest to rebut it. He did so by offering the following analogy:
“But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."
Intelligent listeners of Bennett’s show, I assume, merely nodded their head in agreement, as the example he had offered was just as hollow as the caller’s. However, those remarks ignited a firestorm under the rear-ends of every self-righteous, Politically Correct individual from Congressional Representatives to Wade Henderson, the executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. They demanded an apology. They want his show to be suspended or cancelled. They denounced him as a racist and a bigot all because he attempted to refute a poorly thought out argument with a similar tautology.
Strangely enough, even though such a comment incited hundreds of talking-heads into full-blown defensive mode, not one person has bothered to point out that logically, William Bennett is 100% correct. Offensive? Insensitive? Who cares? Statistically, he makes sense.
While it would be an enormous undertaking to examine every crime perpetrated in America, let’s look at perhaps the most violent of violent crimes: Murder. According to the Department of Justice, between the years 1976 and 2002, Blacks were 7 times more likely to commit homicide than whites. That is a statistical fact based on conviction rates. According to the statistics for 2002, for every 100,000 people in America, 3.6 of them are whites who have been found guilty of homicide. Conversely, 24.9 people (out of that same 100,000) convicted of homicide are black. There are 290 million people in America, and approximately 13% of them are black. Mathematically, that means that .02% of all black Americans are murderers, compared to .0036% of all whites.
Or if you want to look at it another way, in 2002, 8,490 white people were convicted of murder, while in that same year, 9,297 blacks were convicted of murder.
That’s a total of 17,787 murders in America in 2002, and 52.2% of them were committed by 13% of the population.
Using nothing but pure mathematics and logic, one can see that if you were to eliminate a percentage of either one of these groups, the murder rate would decrease proportionately. Are there other variables that would contribute to the crime rate? Of course. And that’s precisely the argument that Bennett was attempting to make. If there were no blacks in America, there would still be crime, as another group would fill the criminal void. But an examination of the numbers vindicates Bennett’s position, and makes the ensuing controversy superfluous.
Logic has redeemed Mr. William Bennett and will continue to kick sand in the face of those who vehemently deny the truth. Want some more eye-popping truth? Visit this site for some brightly colored maps that further support Bennett’s assertion.
Color-Blind Mortals.
Comments